


a second act

by iphigenias



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, skateboarding as a metaphor for overcoming childhood traumas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:28:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27832303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iphigenias/pseuds/iphigenias
Summary: Willie offers Alex his skateboard. Alex says, "I'll learn to board when you learn the drums."
Relationships: Alex/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms)
Comments: 40
Kudos: 211





	a second act

**Author's Note:**

> thought about this fic going to bed last night, at work this morning, walking my dog this afternoon, and here it is. i know nothing about skateboarding and as a 22 y.o. uncoordinated lesbian i'm not about to start learning
> 
> this is set in some nebulous future where alex and willie are just chill ghost bfs, idk. i'm just vibing here. title from jatp edge of great
> 
> warnings for discussions of homophobia re: alex's childhood

“You sure you don’t want a go?”

Alex’s legs are dangling off the edge of the skate ramp, and he looks up at Willie’s question. His hair’s falling into his eyes, his feet swinging back and forth, and there’s the soft edge of a smile playing at his mouth. He’d make Willie’s heart go _ka-thump_ , if he still had one.

Alex shakes his head. “I’m sure.”

Willie leans his board against the wall and lies down on the concrete, head in Alex’s lap. Alex strokes a hand through his hair. Willie takes a moment.

“All I’m saying is,” he says, “no one’s watching. You can fuck up and no one’ll see.”

“Gee, your confidence in me is astounding,” Alex deadpans, and leans back on his hands. “You’re watching,” he says, softer.

Willie sits up. “I can close my eyes,” he offers, and Alex smiles at that.

“Now you’re just making fun.”

“I’m not!”

“Uh huh.” Alex leans in, curves a strong hand around Willie’s jaw. “I’m good. That okay with you?”

Willie’s throat works, and he presses their foreheads together. “If you’re good, I’m good,” he says, and closes the distance between them.

Kissing Alex never feels the same way twice. Their first time, it was awkward—Willie bumped his nose against Alex’s cheek and Alex clacked their teeth together, painfully, which made Willie laugh, which made Alex kiss him again, and then it was good. Really good. Like, maple syrup on French toast good. Like those last long days of summer that stretch out forever.

Alex tonight is warm and a little sleepy, and the kiss is warm and a little lazy too. Willie catches his hand over the strap of Alex’s fanny pack, pulls him closer. Alex’s hand is on Willie’s thigh. Willie moves to straddle him, but they’re on the edge of a skate ramp and, well, _maybe_ he forgot. Willie leans back, Alex overbalances, and they tip down the concrete slope, Alex’s elbow gouging out the space somewhere near Willie’s kidneys.

“I guess ghosts have funny bones,” Alex says when they land, voice strangled, and Willie laughs. He shifts up on his elbows, brackets Alex in with them. “Well, you got me down the ramp,” Alex begins, and Willie kisses him. They stay like that a long while—two dead boys and not a lifetime between them, cradled in the ramp’s bell curve.

Willie drops the subject, but his brain won’t get the memo. Alex goes with Willie to the skate park every week, and watches him, and never moves from his seat on the ramp. And, like, Willie gets it, because it’s like this:

You’re alive, and it’s kind of shit, because fucked up things happen and keep happening and there’s nothing you can really do about it, that’s the way this stupid world works—and then you’re _dead_ , and nothing’s changed, except now you _really_ can’t do anything about it, and trying new things as a dead guy is hard when you can’t even enjoy old ones, when you can’t even hold onto who you used to be.

So, Willie won’t push it, because he’s hurt Alex enough as it is.

Except for the fact that _he can’t drop it_.

Willie offers Alex his board five more times since the night at the park. Alex tells him:

  1. “I’m a seventeen year old unco ghost. Probably not the best time of my afterlife to be learning how to skateboard.”
  2. “I’m a very embarrassing person. You would be so embarrassed of me.”
  3. “I’m not kidding when I say I would probably break your board and that it wouldn’t be the first time no I won’t elaborate.”
  4. “If I told you I had six toes on each foot and therefore couldn’t possibly fit them both on the board properly, would you believe me?”
  5. “I’ll learn to board when you learn the drums.”



Willie’s never turned down a challenge.

“Welcome to your worst nightmare slash possible secret dirty dream,” Willie says as Alex materialises inside the studio. He receives a slow blink in return. “Are you ready for your eardrums to burst from the worst drum solo of all time?”

“Willie,” Alex says, standing there in a pink Champion hoodie and acid wash booty shorts, and he makes Willie feel so fucking weird, like he’s been dumped into a bathtub full of glitter that is also somehow sunflowers, and there’s something shimmery and somersaulting in his chest that he’s pretty sure can’t be his heart because hello, dead, but it’d be really unromantic if it was his spleen or whatever so heart it is. Alex makes Willie’s heart go _so fucking weird_ and staring at his pale thighs in Julie’s mom’s studio on a Wednesday afternoon isn’t helping, so Willie flips his Ray-Bans down onto his nose and lets loose the drumsticks.

He’s really, really bad.

Alex sits down on the couch.

When Willie finishes, Alex says, “when I was little I used to play dollhouse with my sister.” Willie gets up from the drums and sits down on the couch. Alex plucks the sunglasses from his face and slides them on top of his head. “And I mean, it was the eighties, you know what it was like. I probably don’t have to tell you what _they_ were like.”

“Alex,” Willie says, name sharp like glass in his mouth. “You don’t have to tell me anything.”

“No, it’s okay,” and it’s not, but then Alex says, “I played every sport you’ve ever heard of as a kid. My dad enrolled me in everything because I guess, after soccer and lacrosse and cross country and wrestling, which absolutely backfired on him by the way, I wouldn’t have time for dolls. And I mean, he was right.”

Alex takes a breath.

“I sucked at team sports so when I was thirteen Dad got me a board. I went _everywhere_ on that thing—and I wasn’t great, but I wasn’t bad, either. And I was the kind of son he wanted.” Willie places a careful hand on Alex’s knee. Alex doesn’t even hesitate before slotting his own on top. “When I was fifteen,” he says, looking at their hands, “I told him I was gay and Dad took my board and broke it because if I wanted to be a girl now I wouldn’t need it anymore. And then he walked away and threw it in the trash and never looked at me again.”

“Alex,” Willie says, and then again because he doesn’t know what else to say. “ _Alex_.”

He curls into Willie’s body, one long, warm, blonde-haired parenthesis. “That was twenty-seven years ago. I don’t know why I’m still like this.”

“Twenty-seven years but it’s felt like two,” Willie corrects, as gently as he can. “And even if it was the full twenty-seven—there’s no time limit on shit like this, Alex. You take as much as you need, whenever you need it.”

With a little encouragement and gentle nudging, they end up face to face lengthways on the couch. Willie slides the Ray-Bans from Alex’s hair and presses a kiss to his forehead.

“I’m sorry I pushed,” he says. “If I ever do it again feel free to tell me to fuck off. It’ll probably be cathartic.”

“Hmm,” Alex replies. Then: “You should be.”

“What?”

“ _Sorry_.” Willie pulls away a little and Alex meets his gaze dead-on. “For subjecting the neighbourhood to that truly awful drum solo I wish I could bleach from my brain.”

“You—” Alex is laughing and he looks tired and god-awful but he’s _laughing_ and Willie can’t even pretend to be mad. “You’re horrible,” he sniffs. “You should be grateful! One night only drum solo from the love of your life? I’ll have fans lined up round the _block_.”

“You are extremely confident and delusional,” Alex informs him. He kisses Willie flush on the lips; pulls away so minutely Willie is cross-eyed trying to look at him. “Not about the love of my life part, though. Even if you are rhythmically challenged.”

“Honestly, I should be mad, but that just sounds like a euphemism—”

Alex shuts him up. It’s honey and lavender and a crisp fall morning. Willie’s not-heart weirds out, and he listens to it.

Willie jolts into fresh airspace, eyes firmly closed and Alex’s hand in his. “Okay, you can open them now.” Willie does, and blinks, once, twice.

“Is this the—”

“Mega ramp? Yeah.” Alex scuffs his foot on the concrete. “Julie googled it for me. Biggest skate ramp in the world, right?”

“Right, but Alex—” Willie stops, words forgotten, because there are two boards under Alex’s arm, and a helmet dangling from his fingers. As Willie watches, Alex releases his hand, sets down the boards, and straps the helmet over his head. It is the single-most hottest thing Willie has ever seen in his afterlife.

“Thought you could use a little competition,” Alex says when Willie is still very much lost for words. (Hottest. Thing. Ever.) His lip quirks, the way Willie loves, and he holds out a board.

Willie takes it. “Sure you can handle it?” he asks.

Alex smiles into the sun. “I’ve been practicing,” he replies, and tips over the edge. Willie, laughing, follows.

**Author's Note:**

> alex: *stacks immediately*  
> willie: i thought you said you’ve been practicing  
> alex: yeah! in jULIE’S DRIVEWAY
> 
> if anyone's interested the [mega ramp](https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/01/sports/othersports/01ramp.html) is totally a thing (or it was in 2006 when the article i read was written). also unco is completely australian slang but you know what? i'm tired of the americanisation of fiction vocabulary. something something not here to fuck spiders something
> 
> i'm on twitter @svnsvstvrk (she's on priv but i accept follow reqs)


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